He watched her try to pull together the professionalism she so often wore like armor, hated that she felt a need for it.
“I’m a bad bet. I can’t be what you need, what you really want.”
“What is it you think that is?”
“You’re meant for marriage and family. Children. A traditional life.”
The image of a little girl with his eyes and her dark curls, crowned with a big pink bow, came fast and clear in his mind.
“That’s not me, Cam.”
Her words of denial did nothing to stop the picture that had taken root and begun to bloom. He could see it so easily, almost as easily as he could see a truth about her that she didn’t even see herself. “I’ve never met anyone who wants marriage and family and roots more than you. You want all the things you didn’t have growing up or you wouldn’t find my crazy family so appealing.” Unable to stop himself, he reached out, slid a hand around her nape and tilted her face up toward his. “You fit here. Can’t you see that?”
“It’s an illusion. I’m career and ambition. Things I can’t pursue here, not really.”
“You’re more than that.”
“Am I? Or is it that you can’t believe I could be like Melody?”
Whatever argument he’d thought she’d pull out, it wasn’t that. “Leaving aside the fact that I’ve never actually told you about my ex and that my family is apparently a bunch of incurable gossips, that’s absolute bullshit.”
“Really? Bright. Top of my class. Ruthlessly ambitious. Always with an eye on bigger, better things. That all applies to me as much as it did to her.”
“On the surface, maybe it does. But it’s all in the execution, in what those traits drove her to do. Melody would never have put her career on hold to save this town. You’re nothing like her.”
The stubborn jut to Norah’s chin said she wasn’t buying it. How could he convince her that this comparison was complete lunacy?
“If you’d been with me when I dropped out of grad school because my mother had cancer, would you have gone off to Northwestern anyway?”
“Of course not. I’d have deferred enrollment and been right there with you, while I had my mother pulling every contact she had to get your mom in to see the best cancer specialists in the country, instead of just stopping with a few phone calls.”
Cam’s brain ground to a halt as her words sank in. He thought back to those panicked weeks after the diagnosis, the talk of waiting lists and more exams, and all the roadblocks that stood between them and the aggressive treatment his mother needed. And then they’d seemed to disappear. “That’s how she got into MD Anderson so fast, isn’t it? You made that call.”
Norah shrugged. “Sure. What’s the point in being related to one of the top surgeons in the country if you can’t actually use those connections when it matters? It was important to your family, and your family’s important to me. It was the right thing to do.”
His heart
was thudding so fast and hard as the ramifications unfolded in his mind. That one small action on her part might’ve been the thing that kept his mother from dying. Cam framed her face with careful hands and lowered his forehead to hers. “Jesus. You did what you could to help, and you hadn’t even met me yet. That’s who you are. Melody walked away when I needed her most. You’re nothing like her.”
Norah lifted her hands, curled them around his forearms. “I’m enough like her to be bad for you.”
“While I appreciate the sentiment, that isn’t your call. It should be my choice. And I choose you.”
A strange mix of pleasure and pain flickered across her face. Had anyone ever put her first? Not her parents. Certainly not her asshole ex.
“I’ll always choose you. Because you’re worth the risk.”
She was wavering, his name a plea on her lips.
“What are you so afraid of, Norah?”
“You,” she whispered. “You call me fearless, but I’m not. Not when it comes to this. I’m terrified of how you make me feel. Because you tempt me. You make me want things I’ve never wanted before, make me see how my mother got seduced into believing that marriage and family was what she wanted. I don’t want to be like her, don’t want to chase this beautiful thing and then wake up one day and realize I’m suffocating and have to get out. I have that potential in me, and I can’t—won’t risk hurting you like that. You’ve had enough important people walk away from you.”
“The fact that you’re even worried about this proves just how different from them you are. You’re not like Melody. You’re not like my father or your mother. You’re not doomed to making any of the same mistakes or choices.”
“But—”
“But nothing. Am I afraid there’s a chance this won’t pan out? Sure. That’s a possibility in any relationship. But you said yourself, courage isn’t the absence of fear. It’s the judgment that something else is more important. This is more important. You’re more important, and I choose to take the risk. Take it with me.”